The game of chess has inspired many versions, including a few which are educational in nature. Many other types of educational games exist, some of which focus on team building and group leadership. In the scope of team building games, leadership development games, and similar educational entertainments, a significant minority are either board games or electronic games. Chess itself is sometimes referred to as an educational game with its traditional objective being to teach strategic thinking.
A notable example of an educational networked group game for the teaching of, inter alia, cooperative group behavior is the US Department of Defense's America's Army. America's Army is a first person shooter type game wherein players take on the roles of Army soldiers and may work in small teams to overcome challenges in training and fighting. Game visuals are as realistic as possible, as are the tools, physics and other attributes and instruments of the game. The game is used as a promotional and training tool both within and outside the Army.
Another example of an educational networked group game used in the business and academic worlds is Enlight Software's Capitalism II. Capitalism II is used by business schools and corporations to teach strategic and tactical business thinking. The game attempts to provide a realistic business environment, including visuals such as maps, views of cities, etc. The goal of the game is to create a corporation that controls its market, is profitable, and has a worldwide reach.
Chess is referred to as an abstract game. In the field of abstract games, there are significant minorities that include aspects of team play, multiple boards, more then 2 dimensions, timed turns, or other similarities to the present invention. Many abstract games are played in electronic or networked form.
There are several drawbacks to the specifically educational games and simulations developed for team building, group learning and leadership development described above. The present invention attempts to improve on the state of the art by addressing the following main problem areas.
First, the more recent such games, for instance America's Army and Capitalism II mentioned above, are layered in detail and attempted realism to the degree that players are distracted from the nature of the educational goal by visceral reactions to the game play, and therefore more likely to receive training in short term, reactive, tactical skills. The tactical lessons learned will be most useful in very specific circumstances. They are much less likely to represent a change in typical behavior or a learned general response to various general circumstances.
Second, many educational games built on either a basic framework such as Chess, or a more modern video game approach, are complex to learn, or have enough intrinsic learning required for successful play that the learning derived from the play is reduced to a secondary status.
Third, virtually all board and video games with team oriented educational content are focused on a single level of a hierarchy, or remove hierarchy from the game. In life, hierarchy is ever present in the form of management, ownership, chain of command, etc. Groups in business and military contexts are particularly prone to complex interactions between members of the group which are strongly influenced by positions within a hierarchy. While some non-board, board, and video games do attempt to take social hierarchy into account, typically the hierarchical relationships are either thin or virtual and unrelated to the connections between actual players, especially where those players are not in opposition to each other. Hierarchy is rarely, if ever, expressed as a hierarchical relationship between current players where one player's decisions and actions act on players of the same group playing at a lower level. In most cases, to the detriment of realistic learning, hierarchy is actively minimized or abstracted from one player having real impact on other non-oppositional players, typically to alleviate an aspect seen as a distraction or obstacle to smooth group functioning and game play, rather then addressing the immediate interpersonal hierarchy as a reality to be practiced and managed.
Forth, while educational games come in all shapes, sizes, speeds, and durations of play, a dichotomy predominates where mission oriented games tend towards being single-sitting and finite objective, whereas open-ended games tend to simulate the unconstrained aspect of real life rather then structure play within constraints. This separation forces educators to choose between games, rather then offering a configurable game that permits immediate tactical learning, long-term play with a single objective as self-reinforcing strategic learning, observational simulation style learning where immediate play is only indirectly connected to specific outcomes, or a combination of these.
While not exhaustive, the following listing of patents as prior art attempts to highlight those inventions that are most representative of their type and that have aspects similar to the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,902,481 to Robert E. Breckner, Greg A. Schlottmann, Nicole M. Beaulieu, Steven G. LeMay, Dwayne R. Nelson, Johnny Palchetti and Jamal Benbrahim for a game platform that separates the presentation of a game from its underlying logic such that at the user level games may be easily varied.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,786,825 to Akitoshi Kawazu for a game that is configured with an initial controlling value which affects how the game is played.
U.S. Pat. No. 0,511,773 to Frederick A. Iiiggins for a chess-like game with abstract pieces of shapes to be defined by the players on a larger then standard chess board comprised of smaller sections of squares.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,778,187 to Joseph W. Deak, Jr. for a modified game of chess primarily differing from standard chess by the configuration of an expanded board.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,147,360 to Joseph W. Deak, Jr. for a 4 player chess-like game on a larger then standard board and with additional pieces.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,843,130 to Karl R. Whitney for an expanded game of chess for up to 4 players.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,586,762 to Jon P. Wearley for an abstract game based on a nonstandard board, with respect to the standard chess or checkers boards, which may be rule-customized to be akin to either chess or checkers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,856,789 to Richard A. Carlson for a chess-like game for teams of two on a nonstandard board with additional pieces.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,708,349 to Dan Shomer for a chess-like game which may be played by a varying number of players up to 4 on a nonstandard board and new rules of play.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,799,763 to Brian Grady for a chess-like game on a nonstandard board.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,840,237 to Steven Shkolnik for a chess-like game for 3 players making use of multiple sets of chessmen and extending play across multiple boards.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,829,099 to Ronald Ray Lucero for a 4 player chess-like game.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,021,043 to Ronald Ray Lucero for an educational chess game focused on teaching chess using a modified board played by up to 4 players, and having an end game state which is negotiated prior to play.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,446,966 to Henri Crozier for a simplified chess-like game on a modified board with a point-based scoring system, and which may be adapted for networked play.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,582 to Carl E. Ritter for an expanded game of chess wherein a nonstandard board and new pieces are used.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,334 to George William Duke for a modified game of chess using an expanded board and additional pieces.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,957,455 to Chester P. Aldridge for a game of chess wherein the pieces of an opponent are hidden from view.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,353,829 to Richard G. Board for a combat game on multiple boards wherein structures are used to shield boards from complete viewing by players, and which provide 3 dimensional display.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,120,026 to Leland R. Whitney, Myron K. Jordan, Thomas J. Scanlan, and Gregory D. Allen for a board game enhancement comprising a privacy screen which limits the view of a player based on position to a portion of play, and potential new rules and configurations of existing board games.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,017,906 to Gregory Benjamin for a board game as in checkers or chess, but with the addition of mirrors placed such that they modify by reversal the apparent positions of either a players own pieces or his or her opponent's pieces.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,232,864 to James J. Yaworsky for a multi-level game wherein the upper board is translucent and permits a varying field of play and varying views of the lower board.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,031,917 to Leonard M. Greene for a 3 dimensional chess game using 8 chessboards which may be stacked or laid out adjacent to one another, and on which play a modified number of chessmen that can move horizontally or vertically.
U.S. Pat. No. D,255,910 to Michael D. Bergman for a specifically depth limited multi-level chess game wherein each successively lower level is larger then the last by a regular amount.
U.S. Pat. No. D,311,217 to Christine E. Meyers and Glenn M. Meyers for a multi-tier board game of which each successively lower board is larger then the last by a regular amount.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,656,755 to Robert I. Thompson for a 3 dimensional checkers game comprising multiple boards, each based on the standard board design but differently shaped, spaced vertically.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,184,685 to David A. D. J. Wilson for a 3 dimensional board game played on two levels with pieces which travel between levels.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,776,414 to Paule Messac for a universal game board on which may be played a wide variety of games under varying configurations of the board and pieces.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,109 to Bruce P. Leban for a board game wherein board sections are composed of subsections, on which are placed pieces, which may connect to other subsections in a variety of ways depending on how players position the sections during play. In addition a method for concluding a game based on a pre-negotiated definition of what the end game state looks like.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,599,128 to Ronald J. Roberts for a game with the intent to teach strategic thinking and which can be miniaturized to fit on a board.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,378,871 to Ronald J. Roberts for a team game, wherein one player is the team leader, which teaches the value of communication, creative thinking, leadership, teamwork, and cooperation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,254,101 to Jason Phillips Young for a floor game teaching team building skills wherein some players have the ability, via a device, to see geometric paths on the surface of the floor while other players can not see the same.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,762,503 to Joel Hoo and Toshi A. Hoo for a set of electronic components for use both in a game and as an executive management training or team building exercise.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,626,677 to Stuart H. Morse and Stacey A. Morse for a method of teaching leadership, communications and team building skills in an activity.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,007,952 to Christine Nelson for a game which can be used as the basis for developing, inter alia, leadership skills in players.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,035,625 to Gerald L. Munson, Edward P. Daniels, Jr., and Joseph D. Mallozzi for an educational question and answer style game played on a computer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,213,873 to Elon J. Gasper, Thomas M. Abbott, and John G. Gilmore for a computer chess game that helps teach chess strategy, and by analogy general strategy.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,987 to Huai-Yen Fred Chen, Wen-Kang Andrew Li, and Yu-Ying Anita Liang for a chess style game played on a computer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,723 to Harry G. Strappello for a nested set of board rings together comprising a single 3 dimensional chess-style board for playing games of chess, checkers, etc. under the normal rules of the game.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,476 to Gene W. Eplett for a game board apparatus which has multiple stepped levels for playing chess or checkers or like games.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,189,887 to Daniel A. Dommasch for a game played by 2 or more players on a board with multiple playing regions, and wherein a player's pieces may go in and out of play based on the moves of the other players.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,559 to Manfred Eigen and Winkler, Ruthild for an educational game apparatus composed of multiple levels capable of playing a set of games for teaching statistics.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,739,992 to Richard W. May for a game played on a reversible board wherein the sides of the board have a well-defined relationship to each other and one side is chosen for play based on the desired difficulty.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,120,029 to Craig G. Carmichael, and Brian Lee Boyd for an educational chess-like game which is capable of teaching standard chess as well as a game derived wherefrom.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,275,414 to Ryan K. Stephens, Christopher L. Zeis, Ronald R. Plew, and Robert E. Mattsey for a Chess-like game played by 2 teams of 2 players on a modified chessboard.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,207,466 to J. B. Baines for a board game played by 2 to 4 players which affords a mental exercise sufficient to help concentrate the mind, but which remains a pleasant pastime.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,907 to Allen Ginsberg, Martin F. Huss, and Joseph Lynn which provides for a game of a general type which may be adapted to certain types of competition which are encountered in everyday life.
U.S. Pat. No. D,248,413 to Theodore Perfetti, Benedetto Greco, Burton Heiko for an adaptation of checkers to teams of players.